Late to the Party
Dear Partiers:
I’m late to the party again. Today, Dorothy and I visited Eden
Center for the first time, and wondered why we hadn’t started going
there years ago. Eden Center, in Bailey’s Crossroads, is a shopping
center that has dozens of restaurants and businesses that serve
primarily Vietnamese refugees and second and third generation Vietnamese
Americans. It’s vibrant, lively, crowded with shoppers and diners, and
it’s a great experience. It’s what Chinatown used to be in downtown
DC. Decades ago ethnic neighborhoods, and the restaurants and shops that
serviced them, were in urban center cities; suburbs were supposed to be
bland, monotonous places. Baltimore still has those ethnic
neighborhoods; drive west to east on Eastern Avenue, and you’ll go
from Italian to Polish to Hispanic to Greek neighborhoods all within a
couple miles. Washington has gone in the opposite direction. It’s our
suburbs in Maryland and Virginia that have the best ethnic commercial
neighborhoods. Here’s a question for the urbanists, sociologists, and
economists among us: what are the governmental and economic policies
that have largely eliminated DC’s ethnic neighborhoods? If you’re
looking for hints about which restaurants to try in Eden Center, use
this link to see all the entries about it in Tyler Cowan’s invaluable
ethnic dining guide: http://tinyurl.com/d5dhsh.
On December 14, 2008, Dorothy and I wrote in themail about Peter
Nickles’ ill-advised campaign to sue attorneys who are too zealous in
representing the interests of special education students. We wrote, “It
seems that the Attorney General’s effort to intimidate lawyers and to
prevent them from representing their clients to the best of their
ability is something that the DC Office of Bar Counsel should look into”
(http://www.dcwatch.com/themail/2008/08-12-14.htm).
On April 16, Bill Turque reported in DCWire (http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dc/2009/04/nickles_roughed_up_by_federal.html)
that, “DC Attorney General Peter J. Nickles received a thorough
trashing yesterday from a federal judge who denied the District’s bid
to recover $1,725 in legal costs from a private attorney who filed what
officials regarded as a frivolous special education case.” Turque
quotes from the decision by US District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts:
“It is beyond ironic that DC’s Attorney General complains with great
flourish about lawyers who help parents secure disabled children’s
rights when his client, DCPS, has been found repeatedly in this court to
have violated children’s rights under IDEA.” Nickles reacted
peevishly, of course, saying that he would appeal the ruling and
continue to sue special education plaintiffs’ lawyers whom he believes
are too aggressive in representing their interests. If Nickles persists
in this hostile behavior, isn’t it time for the plaintiffs’ bar to
step up its defense? Rather than let Nickles sue them one-by-one for
trying to get special education students the services they are entitled
to, shouldn’t the targeted lawyers launch a countersuit for Nickles’
attempt to deny special ed students adequate legal representation?
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Residential Permit Parking Reform
Jack McKay, jack.mckay@verizon.net
Residential Permit Parking (RPP) is intended to prevent commuters
from using neighborhood streets as free, all-day parking lots. This is a
problem not only near downtown, but within walking distance of any Metro
station. But the District does RPP zoning block-by-block, not
neighborhood-wide, resulting in islands of unzoned blocks surrounded by
seas of RPP-zoned blocks. If commuters can park on those unzoned blocks,
and just walk a few blocks to their destinations, then nothing is
accomplished but to concentrate a commuter-parking problem on those
unzoned blocks. A recent traffic study found that unzoned blocks in
Mount Pleasant averaged 84 percent occupancy on a weekday, twenty
percentage points higher than on RPP-zoned blocks.
Worse, many of those cars clogging the unzoned blocks stay there, day
and night, because they belong to nearby residents who decline to have
their cars registered in the District. The early-March snowfall revealed
more than fifty non-DC cars that had been parked overnight on just three
unzoned blocks in our neighborhood, taking up 20 percent of the
available curbside parking. More recently, an early-Saturday-morning
count, identifying non-DC-tag cars that had been in place overnight,
showed that 27 percent of the available parking space on our unzoned
blocks was taken up by non-DC cars, versus 11 percent on comparable
zoned blocks.
Plainly the residents of those unzoned blocks should petition for RPP,
thus dealing with both the commuter and the non-DC-tag parking problems.
The trouble with that is that these remaining blocks are adjacent to two
valued neighborhood institutions, an elementary school and a nursing
home. What do suburban employees of neighborhood schools and
institutions do, if there is no commercial parking available, and every
street in the area is RPP-zoned? With the help of the District
Department of Transportation, we’ve created a solution for them,
namely inexpensive daytime-only parking passes so that these commuters
can continue to park here, on RPP-zoned blocks. But commuters wanting to
park here and take Metro downtown, and residents whose cars aren’t
registered in the District, cannot.
Block-by-block RPP zoning is, as the District’s ad hoc
Parking Task Force reported more than five years ago, “one of the
major flaws in the current system.” Clearly RPP zoning should be
neighborhood-wide, and should also have daytime parking passes for
employees of neighborhood institutions. Then commuters will no longer be
able to park here and take the Metro downtown, and residents who choose
not to register their cars in the District will no longer be able to
evade the law by parking on unzoned blocks, trusting in the
ineffectiveness of the District’s ROSA — Registration of
Out-of-State Automobiles — program to escape detection.
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Beware of the days assigned for street sweeping for your particular
block. In our block, our days were changed from Tuesdays and Wednesdays
to Wednesdays and Thursdays. We all adjusted to the new schedule and
were comfortable with it, but lo and behold, like thieves in the night,
after the residents were fully into the new schedule, the days were
changed back to Tuesdays and Wednesdays without notifying anyone. You
can guess what took place. Yes, that is right, tickets started to fly
for violating street sweeping.
Now you would think that the director of the Department of Public
Works would step forward and admit that a wrong had been done, but he
proclaimed that he knew nothing about it. Now you know I couldn’t let
that go by without saying something about it. Evidentiary E-mails were
produced showing that he was apprised of the change on January 9. Guess
what, as with most DC officials, he has yet to admit that he was in
error. DPW has made no friends among my neighbors, and you can bet money
that the next foul up by DPW in my block will be met with a flurry of
E-mails to the media, the councilmember, and DPW.
###############
If you have business at 301 C Street, NW, it is best that you have
someone drop you off. There are many signs designed to confuse and
beguile you into believing that you are parking legally, but in fact
they only serve to lure you into thinking that all is right with your
parking. Not only have they reduced the number of parking spaces for
cars; there are no spaces for the handicapped. Time is not favorable to
you if you must do business with the Department of Motor Vehicles on
adjudication, hearings, or just paying tickets. The movement of the
lines is about as slow as molasses in January. The city employees are in
no hurray to process you in and out in any meaningful manner. They can
almost be considered enablers for the ticket masters to ticket your car,
for time will run out before you can get to the slot machine meter.
Take plenty of coins with you if you drive because you will need them
to get your four hours on the meter. You still may not finish in time
before the meter lapses. Those that issue tickets are like roaches after
food left out over night. They wait until you have left the car and then
they strike. 301 C Street, NW, is a money maker for the city. I would
love to see the amount of money that comes in from tickets written for
infractions on C Street. They will not seek another place to relocate
because there is so much money that can be made from unsuspecting
drivers. Unlike the suburbs, that can provide sites for parking with
shuttle service to and from the centers for government business, our
government likes to use us citizens as cash cows, and any measures used
to alleviate the situation just will not be put in place. One of these
days we will have an administration that is for the people and not like
the current one that is against the people.
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The WMATA Budget hearing on April 17 was held because the Washington
Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board is casting about to address
large anticipated budget shortfalls, yet the Board refuses to focus on
the most obvious cause — the Board’s and General Manger’s abject
failure to administer the agency properly. Instead of penalizing riders
and workers, the Board should look to its poor policy direction and
inept management. The first step the Board should take to right WMATA’s
direction is for its members to resign en masse so they can be
replaced by new members who might think outside the WMATA box. The
General Manager should also be released from his contract and allowed to
resign so the new Board members can engage in a search for a general
manager capable to the task of managing this kind of mixed mode transit
system or transitioning to a different operating structure.
Mixed mode transit systems entail almost entirely fixed costs such
that coinciding fare and ridership increases cause higher farebox
recovery with little affect on operating costs. If WMATA finds itself
facing a severe deficit when these factors should be causing surpluses,
the prima facie explanation must necessarily be the Board’s
incompetence. WMATA should contract for an independent efficiency audit
of all its operations to determine, for example, whether services added
in recent years, such as after-midnight on weekends and earlier opening
on weekdays, are covering their marginal cost (inclusive of subsidy). If
not, WMATA should discontinue them.
WMATA should only run eight car trains at six- to seven-minute
intervals during rush hour. Research shows that ridership will not drop
substantially until headways exceed seven minutes. Trains should be cut
to four or six cars outside of rush hour. The six- to seven-minute
headways would prevent back-ups in the tunnels, while reducing overall
staffing needs. WMATA worries about a shortage of drivers, but this
change would substantially reduce the number of drivers needed while
slightly increasing yard workers to couple and uncouple trains. If
MetroAccess costs ($40/rider according to testimony at Alexandria City
Council) are too high, WMATA should seek a higher appropriation, grant,
or waiver or should challenge in court the requirement for this unfunded
mandate.
WMATA should also consider splitting into two agencies — one to run
the MetroRail and another to run the bus system. Economies of scale
might result from agencies with a narrower focus. The alternative is
that, increasingly, MetroBus routes will be replaced with local bus
routes at lower cost and higher public acceptance.
###############
Letter to My New Florida Representatives
Mark Richards, mrichards@krcresearch.com
I moved to Florida this year. It was a very difficult choice to leave
the District of Columbia. I hope to continue to advance equal right for
DC regardless of my residence, and have reached out to my new Senators
with the following letter. “I am a new resident of your state and ask
that you fully and aggressively support and speak out about full and
equal Congressional voting rights and full local autonomy for the
citizens of Washington, District of Columbia. I support DC statehood, an
equal constitutional rights amendment to the Constitution, or other
approaches that would result in equal rights without destroying the
cultural integrity of the District.
“I recently moved to Miami Beach, in the state you represent, from
the District of Columbia, where I lived for about twenty-five years.
Washington, DC, is a wonderful District that I love dearly. But I can no
longer live in an area where Congress actively chooses to disenfranchise
citizens, keeps them in a third class status, and trivializes the
matter. The situation is shameful and violates international agreements,
and I am saddened to say that I have all but given up on seeing
significant progress in my life. As you may be aware, the residents of
DC must rely on representatives from the fifty states and I am now proud
to be counted as a voting American citizen — with you as one of my
voting representatives. My former nonvoting delegate, Congresswoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton, is a fine representative — but voteless if the
matter counts. In the Senate, I had no voting representatives or
nonvoting members in DC — only DC statehood Senators who obviously
have not been seated and are largely ignored. So I want to make sure
that I encourage you and other Florida Congressional representatives to
advance equal rights for the District of Columbia. I am confident this
will be beneficial for Florida.
“I am interested to know more about your specific positions on the
District of Columbia and in the coming days I will plan to schedule a
meeting with your office on one of my many visits to Washington, DC. I
would be happy to talk with you about any of the associated issues at
any time. I am a political sociologist and have written extensively
about DC history and the situation. Following are a couple of my
articles: ‘Public Opinion on DC Equal Rights,’ http://www.dcvote.org/trellis/research/pollingcompilationinpublicperspective01-03.pdf;
‘The History of the Retrocession Debates,’ http://www.dcvote.org/pdfs/mdrretro062004.pdf.
I do not personally support retrocession, but the history of
retrocession is a window into the long-term struggle that continues. The
current DC Voting Rights Act that would give the District a voting
representative in the House is a far cry from equal rights, but is
perhaps better than nothing, and offers opportunities to speak about the
larger issues. However, I do fear that if the bill is passed, many
people who do not follow the issue closely, that is, most people, will
be confused and think the issue is solved. Just today, I spoke to an
activist working on another issue in Miami and he told me, ‘Congress
passed the bill — it gave DC voting rights.’ I suppose he was
referring to the fact the bill passed the House, but hasn’t noticed
the horrific gun bill some members have attached in the Senate. The
situation is outright depressing. Just when will the country bring the
citizens of the District of Columbia into this nation as full and equal
citizens? At the rate they are going, I will be dead.
So I am very pleased to live on Miami Beach now, with its bright sun,
invigorating ocean, and diverse citizens. And I am so pleased to be able
to say I have voting representatives now. I wish you all the best in
Washington, and look forward to meeting you.”
###############
The Old Territory Vs. Population Fight Among
States
Anne Anderson, mobileanne@earthlink.net
In your note about the problem of getting statehood for DC [themail,
April 15], you talked about the “little pipsqueak” syndrome. Here
are some figures I found useful in thinking about this issue. For the
record, here are the list of states, according to Wikipedia, that all
have fewer than one million people as of 2008 (I am choosing the one
million mark because that is the estimate of what our population swells
to on a daily basis with commuters): Wyoming 532,668, DC 591,833,
Vermont 621,668, North Dakota 641,481, Alaska 686.293, South Dakota
804,194, Delaware 873,092, Montana 967,440. DC’s highest population
was in 1950: 802,178. We were well over 700,000 in 1960 and 1970, and
over 600,000 in 1980 and 1990.
I think we are well within our rights to classify ourselves as having
a population easily comparable to at least five states, Wyoming,
Vermont, North Dakota, Alaska, and South Dakota. So, if we don’t have
enough people to be a state, then what do we do with all these other
states? And if it is territory that is required, then how about
considering the immense disparity among the territories of the various
states? I think it is perfectly possible to argue effectively for
statehood, regardless of our size, especially when considering that, as
a state, equal to Maryland and Virginia, we would be able to negotiate a
more equitable management of taxing income at its source. In 2008, DC
subsidized Maryland and Virginia taxpayers to the tune of about $2.26
billion in “state” taxes foregone. So, there is plenty of money to
support the state of New Columbia.
###############
Statehood
Malcolm Wiseman, County of Petworth, State of Potomac, mal@wiseman.us
Gary Imhoff wrote, “Simpler, I’d say, but not necessarily easier.
For most places in the union, I’d speculate, it would be easier to
swallow DC as being something like a state, but not really a state, than
to admit DC to full statehood status” [themail, April 15]. By
definition, any simple act of Congress, e.g., the one to restore DC
statehood, has to be both simpler and easier than any amending the
Constitution, perhaps even by magnitudes. To get a simple vote through
Congress we just need to lobby five hundred people who spend a lot of
time right here in our city-state. They come to us, regularly year after
year. We just keep hitting them every year until they fall.
It’s much easier than lobbying all the members of all the state
legislatures to ratify an amendment, to say nothing of the additional
local lobby effort to achieve a supermajority versus a simple majority
in Congress. All that effort for a half solution or worse. Since more
people by the day it seems are paying attention to this hypocritical
injustice and are willing to exert effort, we need to focus and infuse
the new momentum with basic, factual understanding.
The following should be scrolling on DC billboards and given special
schooling: “Demand for equality in DC only resolved by statehood,”
“Simple act of Congress may grant various DC statehoods,” “Forget
amendments, except,” “Non-statehood remedies, e.g., voting rights,
probably require amendments.”
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets’ Spring
Fling, April 21
John Hockensmith, president@dupont-circle.org
Next Tuesday is the Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets’ annual
Spring Fling event! A friendly reminder to buy your tickets now to our
Spring Fling, being held at the historic Carnegie Institution on April
21 from 6:00-9:00 p.m. (1530 P Street, NW). Your $25 tickets include an
open bar, light dinner, desserts, and access to the largest silent
auction we have ever assembled. A great value in these harsh economic
times! Buy your advance ticket for quick admittance at http://www.dupontcircle.biz
Everybody is welcome, and you just may go home with a value-priced
vacation, oriental rug, restaurant meals, original artwork, gym
membership, a house history, a sailboat cruise on the Chesapeake Bay, a
great vacation in Cape May, or even a new bike! We’ll also be
revealing our completed landscaping and irrigation plans for the
Connecticut Avenue median project, between R and T Streets.
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CFSA Lease in Ward 7, April 22
Sylvia Brown, ANC7C-04, sylvbrown1@verizon.net
Rallying behind the theme “Ward 7 has been left behind for too long
and it’s our turn to join the ranks of becoming an integral part of
our ‘Capital City,’” civic activists from several Ward 7
neighborhoods have banded together to reverse the shortsighted Office of
Property Management’s decision on whether the Child and Family
Services Agency (CFSA) should lease space in the Benning Station
project, a mixed-use office, retail, and residential effort. Join us at
the public meeting with OPM Director Robin-Eve Jasper on Wednesday,
April 22, 7:00 p.m., at Kenilworth Parkside Recreation Center, 4300
Anacostia Avenue, NE. Read more at http://www.capitalcommunitynews.com/publications/eotr/2009_April/28-31_EOR_0409.pdf.
OPM Director Robin-Eve Jasper is threatening to reverse course and is
purportedly planning to award the CFSA lease to another site outside of
Ward 7. The Ward 7 Citizens Coalition posits that the redeveloped
Benning Station property with the anchor CFSA tenant will generate much
more income and yield greater benefits to the District than could be
saved in the short-term. The Coalition is partnering across boundaries
because the economic growth of the broader community is of principal
importance and the individual projects in their respective neighborhoods
hinge on the success of each other. For more information about the CFSA
lease at Benning Station initiative, contact Sylvia Brown at sylvbrown1
at verizon dot net or Greg Rhett at jrhett3009 at aol dot com.
###############
Budget Advocacy Day, April 21
Parisa Norouizi, parisa@empowerdc.org
Please join the Empower DC contingent at this year’s Fair Budget
Coalition advocacy day! Join us on Wednesday, April 22, 9:30 a.m., at
the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW. The community is
taking over the city council. Come be a part of this day where District
residents have their say at the city council.
Make sure your voice is heard by your elected leaders and make sure
programs and services you care about get funded in 2010. Walk around and
talk with city council members and/or staff. For more information,
contact Martina Gillis, 328-5513 or martina@legalclinic.org.
Reply to Linda Leaks at leaks_linda@yahoo.com
or 234-9119.
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The First Ladies and Me Gallery Talk, April 23
Laura Elkins, laura@lauraelkinsartist.com
Please join us! Sixth and I Historic Synagogue and MCFA present a
gallery talk about the exhibition Laura Elkins: The First Ladies and Me,
on Thursday, April 23 at 7:00 p.m. The exhibit has been extended to May
4. Laura Elkins examines notions of power, femininity, sexuality, and
aging in the traditional genre of portraiture, using iconic,
age-indeterminate images of American First Ladies to inform her series
of witty self-portraits. The series began after the artist viewed
official portraits in The White House; over time, she increasingly
integrated personal, political, and catastrophic events into the images,
such as her self-portraits made after Hurricane Katrina, where she
appears as First Ladies Mamie Eisenhower and Lady Bird Johnson,
submerged in flood waters. Until 2007, Elkins confined her subjects to
“mid-century modern” First Ladies, but was drawn into the recent
presidential campaign, when she began painting self-portraits as Hillary
Clinton. On a 2008 residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts,
Elkins was additionally inspired by the bucolic landscape to create
self-portraits of Hillary en plein air, exposed to the vagaries of
weather and the elements. Recent work includes Self as Michelle O, in
which the artist grapples for the first time with a portrait vehicle
younger than she, and a series of studies of her own and Michelle Obama’s
eyes.
For directions, please see Sixth and I’s web site, http://www.sixandi.org;
for more about Laura Elkins, please visit http://MCF-A.com, our
temporary blog (during web site construction), my web site, http://www.lauraelkinsartist.com,
or call 860-450-6445.
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Environmental Health Group (EHG) Events, April
23
Allen Hengst, ahengst@rcn.com
World War I munitions, bottles filled with chemical warfare agents
and contaminated soil have been found in and around the Spring Valley
neighborhood of northwest DC. The Environmental Health Group (EHG) seeks
to raise awareness of the issues and encourage a thorough investigation
and cleanup. Every Sunday at 1:30 p.m., please join the Environmental
Health Group for an informal discussion about Spring Valley issues. At
Glover Park Whole Foods Market, 2323 Wisconsin Avenue, NW (one block
south of Calvert Street). For more information, visit the EHG on
Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Washington-DC/Environmental-Health-Group/67807900019.
Thursday, April 23, 7:30 p.m.: Panel discussion on the “Clean-Up of
Military Pollution in Spring Valley” moderated by Jeffrey L. Kraskin,
OD, Member, Spring Valley Scientific Advisory Panel with attorney Harold
G. Bailey, Jr., documentary film producer Ginny Durrin, attorney Erik
Olsen, Marina Voronova of Global Green, and ANC 3D-03 Commissioner Nan
Wells. At Saint Columba Episcopal Church, 4201 Albemarle Street, NW (one
block west of the Tenleytown-AU Metro). Sponsored by the Ward 3
Democrats http://www.ward3dems.org/.
###############
Vagina Monologues Performance to Benefit House
of Ruth, April 25
John Campbell, jcampbell@geofinity.com
The Washington Ethical Society and the Unitarian Universalist
Congregation of Fairfax present a benefit performance of Eve Ensler’s
The Vagina Monologues on Saturday, April 25, at 8:00 p.m. at the
Washington Ethical Society, 7750 16th Street, NW. Tickets are $15 in
advance or $20 at the door. All proceeds benefit DC’s House of Ruth
(90 percent) and Women of the Democratic Republic of Congo (10 percent).
The show is part of the global V-Day movement to raise funds and
awareness to help end violence against women and girls. Several thousand
similar events take place each year, worldwide. Always ten percent of
the proceeds goes to the V-Day’s designated recipient, which this year
is the campaign to combat the atrocities against women in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. WES has chosen House of Ruth to receive the other 90
percent of the ticket sales from the April 25 production.
Earlier this year, a group of women from the Unitarian Universalist
Congregation of Fairfax performed the Monologues twice at the UUCF to
rave reviews. Under the V-Day movement’s terms, they are allowed one
more performance and have generously agreed to hold it at the Washington
Ethical Society and let WES designate the beneficiary. We chose House of
Ruth, a shelter in DC that currently serves six hundred women and
children, all in need of hope, safety, and love. Reception following the
performance. To order tickets: 244-0206 or TVMtickets@aol.com
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